Book cover of Termination Shock

Book description

The #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with a visionary technothriller about climate change

'Stephenson's reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved' Sunday Times

'His most visionary, and timely, book yet' Chicago Review of Books

'Absorbing speculative fiction' Guardian

'Brilliantly entertaining... at science fiction's cutting edge'…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Termination Shock as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

One of Stephenson’s most recent novels, Termination Shock is a present-day story about an eccentric billionaire who takes on climate change. As the former lead energy and transportation economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers who helped craft a lot of the legislation that governs climate change policy today, I’m often annoyed at how often writers are wrong about both the science and the economics of climate change. This novel is one of the more accurate representations of both the urgency and scope of the climate problem that avoids the fearmongering, while still telling a fun adventure story…

What if a gas station billionaire decided to save the planet from oil by using the world’s biggest gun to dim the sun? Oh, and he teamed up with the Queen of the Netherlands and the Captain Ahab of feral hog hunters to do it. I’m a fan of Stephenson’s colorful characters and addictive, page-turning plots. This one is particularly provocative, making a technological case for geoengineering and arguing that the fossil fuel industry is too entrenched to go away overnight. What I enjoyed most, however, was the exploration of the history and geography of real locales: Texas, Punjab, Papua,…

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Imperium is the most expensive structure ever created. Once an orbiting laboratory, it is now a space hotel for the fantastically wealthy. But as the station preps for its first group of space tourists, Dr. Chloe Bonilla, Imperium’s resident biophysicist, finds herself questioning whether babysitting a passel of space glampers…

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